The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that 7.28% of the light-duty vehicles registered in the 50 states and the District of Columbia run on pure electricity or an electric boost provided by their traditional combustion engines. 16 states beat that average. The places with the highest proportion of electric/hybrid cars are the District of Columbia (14.83%), California (13.04%), and Washington (10.69%).
South Dakota has the fourth-lowest proportion of electric/hybrid vehicles, just 3.12%. The only states with lower proportions of zappy cars are our neighbors Wyoming (2.74%) and North Dakota (2.57%) and our too-often statistical neighbor Mississippi (2.70%).
You might grumble that the cold keeps us from adopting electrical propulsion, and it is true that all 16 of the states beating the national average have higher annual average temperatures than South Dakota’s 47.3°F. But our parka’d neighbors in Minnesota average only 45.6°F through the year and still manage to be the median adopter, with 5.79% of their cars running wholly or partially on electricity. New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska (26.6°F!) also have colder annual average temperatures yet higher rates of electric/hybrid vehicle adoption.
Winter is coming, but don’t let those chill north winds stop you from doing your patriotic part to fight high gas prices and global warming: get an electric car!
I love my electric car. Its fun to drive by the gas station and not worry about what the price is. We took a road trip a couple months ago with our EV to Minnesota, I spent $45 on the entire trip for charging. We took a trip last weekend to the hills with our pilot, $70 each time * 3 fill ups. The problem with EV here is the charging infrastructure.